Thermal printers are used in a variety of different applications, such as, for example, receipt dispensing systems for ATMs and point-of-sale devices. Various types of thermal printers have been developed including direct thermal printers, thermal transfer printers, dye-sublimation thermal printers, or the like. To generate a printed media, such as a receipt, a printer may include a thermal printhead that applies energy to series of printhead dots (e.g., heating elements) to print respective dot images on the media. Printheads may have varying sizes, shapes, and may have varying numbers of printhead dots depending on the printer application. For example, a printer application that requires two-inch wide media may require a printhead having 384 dots that are capable of printing a 2-inch wide print line (i.e., a line of print that spans across the media, often perpendicular to the direction in which the media feeds). Applying energy to the dots of the thermal printhead heats the dots and permits the heat energy generated by the dots to be transferred to the media to image (i.e., print) the media. Thermal print media (e.g., thermochromic paper) can be designed and manufactured such that when the media receives a threshold amount of energy, the media may change color, for example, from white to black. Other types of print media may alternatively be used that are designed and optimized for grayscale printing. In some instances, the media may be synthetic, rather than being paper-based. A synthetic media may be configured to change from clear to black in response to absorbing a threshold amount of heat energy.
Because printheads can have a linear series of printhead dots that span the width of the media, thermal printers often print one line of a print job at a time. Based on the content to be printed, different printhead dots for a given line may be turned on or off. For example, if a solid line is to be printed across the media, then all of the printhead dots may be turned on to print that line as a solid line of dot images. Energizing the printhead dots can be referred to as strobing the dots, and the time needed to strobe the dots for a particular print event is referred to as the strobe time. Each line of a given print job may be printed by moving the media, via a motor, relative to the printhead and changing which printhead dots are turned on and which printhead dots are turned off. The speed at which the media is printed is often measured in inches per second, or ips, which can be related to the line strobe time required for printing individual lines in a given print job.
Applicant has identified a number of deficiencies and problems associated with the printing of labels or other media. Through applied effort, ingenuity, and innovation, Applicant has solved many of these identified problems by developing a solution that is embodied by the present invention, which is described in detail below.